Mastermill Magnetic Chuck with standard square poles.

Even though Walmag’s portfolio of lifting magnets and magnetic chucks is extensive, custom-made magnets are still needed every now and then. The reason for customisation is most often unusual proportions of the lifted or clamped workpieces. How do we proceed when making a customised lifting magnet or a magnetic chuck?

Customising Magnetic Chucks

When talking about clamping workpieces of unusual proportions, we usually refer to  very thin workpieces—our standard magnetic chucks (e.g., our Mastermill chuck) firmly clamp workpieces that are only 12 mm thin.

The problem when clamping thinner pieces is that they’re so thin that the chuck magnetises right through them, causing the magnetic field to close outside the clamped workpiece, not within. Then, the clamping force is not sufficient—the clamped piece can move, slide or vibrate during machining.

How do customised magnetic chucks solve this problem? We make the poles of the customised magnetic chuck denser and smaller—more magnetic poles create a stronger magnetic field and increase the magnetic force of the chuck. From our experience, we can confidently say that a customised magnetic chuck safely clamps even a 4 mm thin workpiece.

Another helpful customisation for magnetic chucks is an added top pole desk. It’s a double upper desk into which the contours of the clamped workpiece can be milled, thus creating a form of sorts that the workpieces fit into during machining. This ensures an extra secure hold for the clamped workpiece.

 

Customising Lifting Magnets

We customise lifting magnets for our customers when they need to lift workpieces of larger dimensions or otherwise specific workpieces (e.g., hollow workpieces). We customise the magnetic prism—the shape of the magnetic surface. This way, we customised the magnetic prism on lifting magnets for Siemens facilities in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, Czech Republic.

We also adapt operating components of lifting magnets—for Siemens, for example, we added a switch button on the Easy-Switch handle, which unlocks the handle from the ON position.

 


Customised Mastermill Magnetic Chuck with denser
and smaller poles.

Does Customisation Pay Off?

Customisation usually increases the price of a magnet by 10 – 15%. But it also depends on how many customised magnets a customer orders—the more magnets, the lower the price per unit.

Customisation usually doesn’t pay off when you need just one magnet of average price as we still need to include the cost for development in the final price.

On the other hand, we believe that customising more expensive magnets (5,000 EUR and more) is always a smart solution. Sure, customisation makes the magnet considerably more costly. But with such an investment, it makes sense to get the right magnet for you, perfectly adapted to your needs.

On that note, it should come as no surprise that customised magnets are often seen in productions that use hundreds of magnets (like the Siemens facilities mentioned earlier).

 

How Long Does the Customisation Process Take?

Once we establish (after discussing our customer’s needs and conditions) that customised lifting magnets or magnetic chucks are the best option, the first necessary step is a thorough analysis of the customer’s needs. We need to know:

  • what the magnet needs to do,
  • how the customer is going to use it,
  • what materials it’s going to work with,
  • the dimensions of lifted/clamped workpieces,
  • in what conditions the magnet is going to be placed (inside or outside, dustiness, the temperature of workpieces, cutting conditions etc.),
  • whether the magnet’s control unit needs to be interconnected with the control unit of a machining device or a crane.

Our technicians design the magnet and set its price based on our analysis. We only start manufacturing the magnet after our customer confirms the order and pays a deposit.

Our delivery time for customised magnets doesn’t differ from our standard magnets much (except for magnets that are in stock). Our average delivery time is eight weeks from order confirmation.

Are you considering magnets for your production, or do you need to buy new ones? Contact us; we’d love to find the optimal solution for you—a customised lifting magnet, a magnetic chuck, or a magnet from our standard production. We even offer loans of our magnets so that you can try them out first.